Altoura 5.0

Altoura 5.0 is built with a secure enterprise infrastructure for 3D asset management, spatial collaboration tools, and a no-code Experience Builder® that empowers organizations to easily design spatial (3D) experiences like immersive training and collaborative visualization, tailored for their industry needs and workflows. Business-critical use cases that once required a physical presence—such as employee training, product prototyping, facilities design and planning, space layout, and high-end product demos—can now be completed as immersive experiences inside Altoura from any location on any device. This shift from physical work to virtual remote work creates operating efficiencies and increases employee engagement.

“Altoura is the pioneer of optimizing high-fidelity 3D models for collaborative visualization,” said Jamie Fleming, CEO of Altoura. “With Altoura 5.0, organizations can do more than traverse the metaverse. They can import 3D models of their buildings, machines, and equipment into Altoura’s collaborative and immersive virtual environment so their employees can plan, design, configure, and train on those assets from any location. This is how knowledge can be captured and transferred to the next generation of employees, and how hybrid work becomes productive work in the metaverse.”

Altoura is used by the world’s leading manufacturing, retail, engineering, and technology firms such as Microsoft, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wabtec, Cummins, GAP, Target, and many others. “We use Altoura to help visualize, tour, plan, and manage our most important facilities investments before they are built, which at scale translates to big savings in physical prototyping costs and travel expenses,” said Salla Eckhardt, Director of Transformation Services at Microsoft.

Train-to-Work

Train-to-Work is the only comprehensive immersive training solution for hybrid work, and includes Altoura 5.0, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides, and HoloLens 2. It is an integrated solution that enables workers to train on 3D models inside Altoura’s collaborative virtual environment. Then, when they deploy for work at their physical location, they can use Dynamics 365 Guides and HoloLens 2 for AR assistance to complete their tasks. The training experience is consistent and familiar across both virtual and physical environments, which accelerates learning and improves worker confidence.

Line of business leaders and learning and development (L&D) professionals also benefit from Train-to-Work. Because of Altoura’s native integration with Dynamics 365 Guides, training content creators need only build training materials once in Dynamics 365 Guides, then import them into Altoura. This approach lets them deliver a consistent user interface and training paradigm to their employees in both virtual and physical environments.

Fortune 500 customers around the globe already benefit from Train-to-Work. For example, Thermo Fisher Scientific uses Altoura, Dynamics 365 Guides, and HoloLens 2 to train technicians in their Pharma Services Group (PSG) responsible for servicing analytical machines that enable scientists to conduct COVID-19-related vaccine work. They complete virtual training guides in Altoura, then follow those same instructions in Dynamics 365 Guides while wearing a HoloLens 2 as they perform tasks on physical equipment on the front lines. In a recent webinar available on http://www.altoura.com, Chris Binion, Innovation Lead at Thermo Fisher Scientific, said, “With Altoura, we’ve cut training time by up to 60 percent while improving employee productivity, increasing knowledge retention, and reducing training costs.”

Train-to-Work can be configured for rapid evaluations and deployments. In addition, systems integrators around the globe provide a range of services to help organizations use Altoura to design immersive training programs for their specific industry needs. It can be purchased from Altoura or Altoura partners for a set monthly price depending on the number of users required.

Partner Support for Altoura 5.0 and Train-to-Work

Microsoft

“Altoura was one of our first mixed reality partners building solutions for HoloLens 2, and their commitment to deliver customer value has really set them apart,” said Yancey Smith, General Manager of Mixed Reality at Microsoft. “We’re excited for Altoura 5.0 and what it means for our many joint customers that are using metaverse technologies to establish a competitive advantage in their respective industries.”

“Altoura gracefully guides enterprises through the Mixed Reality journey, bringing together the Altoura platform with Azure cloud services, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides, Power Apps, and HoloLens 2 to deliver no-code solutions in the metaverse that massively improve worker productivity,” said Eric Kamont, Mixed Reality Strategic Partnerships Lead at Microsoft.

Insight

“Altoura’s platform is proven in the market and used by the best brands in the world, so we’re thrilled to partner with them to build solutions for our clients that improve productivity and drive down costs,” said Matt Fedorovich, Immersive Technology lead at Insight, a Fortune 500 technology and services provider. “The combination of Altoura with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides and HoloLens 2 makes it possible for us to build immersive training solutions for our clients that have a critical need to upskill their remote workers and continue to train them once they are deployed on the front lines.”

Velrada

Dan Hookham, CIO of Velrada, a global systems integrator, said that his company has designed an MR-as-a-Service offering to help enterprises set up a Train-to-Work® proof-of-concept in a matter of days, at a set price, with expert assistance. “We’re thrilled about the new capabilities of Altoura 5.0 and Train-to-Work because our global customers continue to express a real need for immersive training to upskill their hybrid workforce,” he said.

About Altoura

Altoura is the pioneer of interactive digital twin technology and maker of the productivity platform for the metaverse. Altoura 5.0, the company’s no-code platform, transforms physical assets into high-fidelity 3D models that power immersive, interactive, and collaborative experiences for remote workers. Altoura is a Gold member of Microsoft’s elite Mixed Reality Partner Program (MRPP) and a strategic partner with Facebook, Unity, Insight, Velrada, and many global systems integrators. With a large and growing base of Fortune 500 customers, Altoura is the #1 platform in manufacturing, retail, healthcare, AEC, RE&F, and technology companies that are driving digital transformation initiatives to empower their hybrid workforce with the tools to be productive from anywhere.

Learn more about Altoura 5.0: https://go.altoura.com/altoura5
Learn more about Train-to-Work®: https://www.altoura.com/train-to-work.html

PwC’s ‘Seeing is believing’ report explores how virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) may add value to the economy by 2030 as well as the benefits it may bring to industries including manufacturing, healthcare, energy, retail and training and development.

Their findings forecasts that virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) have the potential to add $1.5 trillion to the global economy by 2030.  From creating new customer experiences to speeding up product development, VR and AR can present a broad range of opportunities for businesses.

PwC’s report is enhanced with augmented reality experiences which will provide you with additional insights.  You can visit the PwC website to download your own copy and find out the results of their report, detailing how VR and AR are transforming business and the economy.

Go to: Seeing is Believing 

Also from the PwC website:

We estimate virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can bring net economic benefits of $1.5 trillion by 2030. But where did we get that number from? As you can imagine, estimating the potential impacts of new technologies like VR and AR is tricky and uncertain. The task is even more difficult when these technologies are expected to develop rapidly and become more deeply ingrained in our everyday lives. But we feel it’s important to highlight the potential in a way that give our clients the facts to build a business case to act – and that starts with a robust methodology.

A report by The Elec suggests that Microsoft and Samsung are working together on future augmented reality hardware. It is not disclosed whether this is for the consumer market, enterprise market, or both. All that is known is that the project is AR-related and may involve some sort of hardware Samsung will be producing (rather than Microsoft). Samsung’s investments in DigiLens, the company behind tech found in AR display devices, may further substantiate the idea that the former will be handling the physical gadgetry in its collaboration with Microsoft.

Apparently, several divisions of Samsung are involved in the project, with Samsung Display, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and Samsung SDI are all tied in. This AR project started in the middle fo 2021 and aims to result in a commercially viable product by 2024.

Fully optimized for hands-free use, RealWear Navigator 500 is an innovative platform solution that combines hardware, software, and cloud-ready services with a rugged design that is one-third lighter and slimmer than the previous generation, making it easier for frontline workers to wear the device for their entire shift. The hardware is designed as a modular platform with an upgradeable 48 megapixel (MP) camera system, a truly hot-swappable battery, with Wi-Fi, and an optional 4G (and soon-to-be-available 5G) modem. The voice-controlled user interface includes unique noise-cancelation technology designed for high-noise environments. RealWear has more than 200 optimized partner apps supporting a variety of use cases, such as remote collaboration, guided workflow and IoT and AI data visualization.

Assisted reality [infographic available] is a non-immersive experience and has become the preferred Extended Reality (XR) solution for frontline industrial workers, especially where high situational awareness is necessary. Assisted reality experiences are closer to the physical world, compared to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences that immerse workers in the metaverse.

With RealWear Navigator 500, RealWear has again raised the bar for how assisted reality and other XR technologies are deployed at the world’s leading industrial companies. Automotive, logistics, manufacturing, food & beverage and energy companies, among others, can use RealWear Navigator 500 to deliver real-time access to online information and expertise to the world’s more than 100 million industrial frontline workers.

“With pandemic concerns continuing to press upon the global economy, how technology is enabling a ‘new way to work’ is very much in focus, particularly for industrial frontline workers,” said Andrew Chrostowski, Chairman and CEO of RealWear. “Today we’re unveiling something far bigger than a product. The RealWear Navigator 500 delivers the next generation of work with a ‘reality-first, digital-second’ enterprise solution for remote collaboration, operational efficiency, and hybrid work in safety-critical industries. Assisted reality – more so than augmented or virtual reality – is designed specifically for the frontline worker who requires both hands for the job, striking the perfect balance of keeping workers 100% present and self-aware with the ability to safely navigate industrial surroundings. After all, nobody wants to be near hazardous equipment with their head stuck into the metaverse.”

Read the rest of the full press release here. 

The new service is offered by Ford’s Technical Assistance Center (TAC), a centralized diagnostic troubleshooting team that provides support to all Ford and Lincoln dealerships’ technicians who diagnose and repair customer vehicles.  Dealer technicians can initially reach out to TAC specialists via a web-based portal or even on a phone.  With the new See What I See program, TAC specialists can now start a remote AR session using TeamViewer Frontline through a pair of onsite RealWear smart glasses to share, in real time, exactly what the repair technician is looking at.  TAC specialists can add on-screen annotations and additional documentation directly in the line of sight of the repair technicians, as well as zoom in, share their screen, record the session and even turn on flashlights remotely.

“My team diagnoses some of the most complex and complicated vehicle issues,” says Bryan Jenkins, TAC powertrain operations manager.  “I would frequently hear my team say that if they could only see what that technician is talking about, or what the technician is doing or how they’re completing a test, then they could solve the problem more accurately.  A picture is worth 1000 words, but sometimes that still wasn’t quite enough, and we needed a way to see something live and in action.  And that’s what really kicked this whole program off.”

Ford’s See What I See program is an additional layer of support that is already used by more than 400 dealers in the U.S., Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.  Currently Ford is promoting the new program to its full network of 3,100 U.S. based dealers, with a positive response. “Feedback from the dealers has been really good,” says Jenkins.  “From the dealer technician perspective, they just turn on their smart glasses and accept an incoming call, then it is like my specialists are there looking over their shoulder to help resolve the problem.”

“We are very excited to add Ford to our growing list of forward-thinking customers that are leveraging AR solutions to improve business processes,” says Patty Nagle, president of TeamViewer Americas.  “The majority of workers globally do not sit in front of a desk.  Our goal is to enable those frontline workers with AR guided solutions to enable them to do their jobs better by digitalizing and streamlining processes.”

Rarely has industrial automation changed at such an exponential rate. The combination of various technology trends has propelled enterprises into Industry 4.0 so fast that Frost & Sullivan has already delivered an Industry 5.0 blueprint to guide the journey.

Edge-and-cloud integration, converged development environments, artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous production are far more than conceptual. These technological innovations are already happening.

“This is a unique time in our industry,” explained Cyril Perducat, who shared the automation supplier’s plans for the immediate future at Automation Fair 2021 in Houston. “The future is a trajectory, a path that we are already on. When I think of Industry 4.0, which was first coined in 2011, there is certainly a lot of learning over the past 10 years of what Industry 4.0 can deliver. And COVID has accelerated many of those dimensions.”

Remote connectivity, advanced engineering with multiple digital twins, mixing physical and digital assets, and the change of human-machine interaction are driving industry along that path toward Industry 5.0.

Perducat questioned whether it’s too soon to look at Industry 5.0 when all the promise of Industry 4.0 has not yet been delivered, but he identified five changes that are attainable and impactful in Frost & Sullivan’s comparison of Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0:

• delivery of customer experience,
• hyper customization,
• responsive and distributed supply chain,
• experience-activated (interactive) products, and
• return of manpower to factories.

“We are able to bring more capabilities to people,” said Perducat. “Human resources are scarce. By delivering systems that make the human-machine interaction more efficient, we make it more impactful while remaining safe.”

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Rockwell Automation has identified four areas where technology can move companies along that journey:

• evolution of cloud, edge and software,
• universal control and converged integrated development environments (IDEs),
• AI native operation management, including software as a service (SaaS) and digital services, and
• autonomous systems and augmented workforce.

“We believe in control at the enterprise level,” explained Perducat. “We believe in systems with software-defined architecture and the underlying hardware. It doesn’t mean hardware is becoming obsolete. And it’s not that every piece of the system needs to be smart. The entire system, from the device to the edge and to the cloud, is smart. Edge + cloud architecture is fundamental.”

In the converged environment, control, safety and motion all come together and must work in an integrated fashion. This is especially true with the growth of robotics. “The boundaries between control and robotics are becoming more and more blurred,” said Perducat. “Safety is very fundamental in this more complex architecture. It does not work if it is not safe.”

Operations management becomes more efficient when AI is native to the architecture and is at the level of the enterprise. “A holistic view requires a lot of data and the ability to process that data,” explained Perducat. “Part of this has to be autonomous using the power of applied AI; it’s not just one more tool but is everywhere in the architecture. We can use AI on the machine to translate vibrations into data. We can think of AI in terms of process modeling. And model predictive control is evolving with AI. When you can orchestrate all the elements of the architecture, that is a system.”

FactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI is a modeling engine that enables closed-loop optimization through four steps—observe (sensor), infer (model), decide (controller) and act (actuator).

Finally, by transforming from automated systems to autonomous systems, it enables better decisions to expand human possibility.

AI can also help to simplify a new generation of design. “You can use AI to help to generate blocks of code, like individuals working together peer-to-peer, but one of them is AI, augmenting human possibility,” explained Perducat.

“We see the next step to autonomous manufacturing as an opportunity to deliver value to our customers,” he said. “The autonomous system is reimagining the fundamental principles of autonomous control systems. You don’t need to rip and replace. We have the ability to augment existing systems with new technology.”

Perducat stressed that it cannot be just technology innovation. “Technology only creates possibilities or potential values,” he explained. “It has to be accessible by users, so we have to innovate on the user experience point of view. We want to bring that to all the products, experiences and models. In a digital native world, innovation extends beyond technology and features.

While many AR companies are focused on building AR products, HP is making an interesting move in using the technology as an add-on to improve an existing line of its business. The company’s newly announced xRServices program promises to deliver remote AR support for its industrial printer customers.

The program employs Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 headset, which HP’s customers can use to access AR training and live guided instructions to fix issues that arrive with complex, commercial scale printers.

HP is pitching the solution as a way to allow even untrained individuals to fix issues with the help of a specialist on the other end who can guide them step-by-step through troubleshooting and repairs with AR instruction. Further the company says the service can be used to provide AR training for various workflows and issues that may arise with the company’s industrial printers.

HP hasn’t clearly detailed exactly what software it’s running on HoloLens to facilitate xRServices, but it seems likely that it is leveraging Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Remote Assist platform which includes many of the AR functions that HP showcased in its xRServices concept video—like augmented annotation, document visualization, and video chatting through the headset.

The Bazeley Pilot Facility at the Parkville site in Melbourne, has been trying out Apprentice IO, an intelligent batch execution system that includes augmented reality. CSL, the world’s third largest biotech company, uses pilot plants to test manufacturing processes on a small scale. The company specializes in rare and serious diseases as well as influenza prevention.

Learn about a CSL Behring pilot plant in Illinois.

Working with Apprentice IO in Australia (AREA member) means a near-complete reimagining of core operations, including product development, manufacturing and supply chain solutions, said Sharon Orr, CSL’s Manager, Innovation and Technical Operations, Pilot Scale Operations. As part of the six-month test, the team is exploring alternatives to paper-based batch records, standard operating procedures and work instructions. The exercise has fundamentally changed the way operators of the system think about and approach instructions from the outset, Orr said.

When integrated with lab facilities, the augmented reality headset and linked iPad, can provide-on-the spot feedback, process directives and problem-solving techniques in real time. Paper records require a four-eyes approach for calculations, checking raw material information and weighs, she said. The experimental platform replaces manual cross-checking methods with automated formulas, ranges and barcoding. If results don’t match, then the system flags it to the operator saving time and ensuring compliance.

“Once a procedure has been augmented and approved, I can use this technology to perform a process ‘hands-free’ without having to worry about cumbersome paper-based data collection and manual checking,” Orr said.

Approved standard operating procedures can be accessed at the click of a button, Pilot Scale Operations scientist Hugh Harris said. With the new manufacturing software and augmented reality capabilities, colleagues at different sites would also be able to share data and see what’s happening in real time. CSL may bring the software system to other pilot facilities in Australia and the United States.

“Watching the team explore this new technology at the forefront of next generation manufacturing has been truly inspiring,” said Matthias Zimmermann, CSL’s Executive Director of Bioprocess Development. “They have shown a willingness to embrace the technology and incorporate it within our already existing processes. They have also worked with the software program designers to inform the next version, in some ways advancing this technology together.”

If you’re a European stakeholder in the XR industry – particularly an XR solutions provider, academic, or researcher – you can contribute to the study and its findings by completing a survey conducted by private research institute Visionary Analytics.

Click here to complete the survey.

The survey should take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. As compensation for your time spent, Visionary Analytics will provide you with a statistical summary of the survey results; simply provide your email address when asked. The answers that you provide will not be linked to your name or the organization that you represent.

Please complete the survey by December 14, 2021. If you have questions about this survey or the study, please contact xr@surveysvisionary.lt.

The Pepperl+Fuchs brand ECOM Instruments introduces Visor-Ex® 01 smart glasses for industrial use in hazardous areas.

The intelligent wearable, weighing just 180 g, combines high camera / display quality and reliable communication features in an ergonomic design for user’s utmost comfort. This provides mobile workers with an optimal companion for tasks that require hands-free use as well as continuous communication, for example with a remote expert.

This product is the result of a longterm close collaboration between ECOM Instruments and IRISTICK, bringing together ECOM’s in-depth knowledge of the requirements of hazardous areas with IRISTICK’s profound experience of smart glasses development.

Innovative tool for the mobile worker in hazardous areas

A total of three integrated cameras transform Visor-Ex® 01 into the remote expert’s bionic eye. Two 16-megapixel cameras are centrally positioned to depict the wearer’s natural field of vision – this way the remote expert views what is happening from the same angle and perspective as the mobile worker. A secondary camera offers a 6x optical zoom for zooming in without loss of quality and fast scanning of barcodes and QR codes. The system utilises the ECOM Smart-Ex® 02 smartphone for hazardous areas as a computing unit with LTE connectivity and a pocket unit with a replaceable battery for power supply, all combined in an intelligent ecosystem for a wide range of application scenarios in the industrial sector.

The distribution of functions across the individual system components helps to minimise the weight of the headset unit – without compromising on performance, connectivity or battery life.

By connecting to the Smart-Ex® 02, users can continue to use their tried-and-tested smartphone for harsh environmental conditions without restriction and benefit from all the advantages and security features and controls of the Android 11 operating system, including over-the-air updates. Leading to ease of use and low Total Cost of Ownership.

Visor-Ex® 01 will be certified for ATEX/IECEx Zone 1/21 and 2/22 as well as NEC/CEC Division 1 and 2 and will have protection class IP68. It can be used within a temperature range of -20 to +60 °C.

Read Iristick’s AREA member profile 

For more information: www.visor-ex.com

For sales information : sales@iristick.com or sales@ecom-ex.com